Where We Drink: Singapore
There’s no shortage of places to wet your whistle in Singapore. From rooftops to speakeasies, pubs to beach clubs, you’ll find a bar to fit the bill.
Through a mix of recommendations and our own extensive on-the-ground research, we put together this (by no means definitive) list of our favourite places to drink in Singapore.
We hope you find it useful.
Smoke & Mirrors Cocktail Bar
There are few better views in Singapore than the one you’re afforded from Smoke & Mirrors, a cocktail bar on the roof of the National Gallery. Sip your drink as you look over the unmistakable silhouette of the Marina Bay Sands resort complex and the durian-shaped domed rooftops of the Esplanade Theatre.
#06–01 National Gallery Singapore 1 St. Andrew’s Road Singapore 178957
WINE RVLT
When Alvin Gho, Ian Lim and Manel Valero opened WINE RVLT, it was to do as its name suggests: start a wine revolution. The wine scene in Singapore has always been conservative, and there were few — if any — places that sold the wines Gho and Lim wanted to drink: natural, organic/biodynamic and minimal intervention. There’s no list as such at WINE RVLT — bottles are displayed on the wall instead, and one red, one white and one sparkling are opened each day to sell by the glass. As for food, Valero’s menu is simple but insanely well-executed: Think rigatoni cooked al dente and tossed with crunchy chanterelles and shaved idiazabal cheese; toasted potato bread topped with confit tomatoes and thin slices of cured wagyu; or salt and vinegar tempura spring onions.
38 Carpenter Street (Level 1), Singapore 059917
Employees Only
An offshoot of the New York original, Employees Only transports you back to the Prohibition days in the US. There is an American food menu, if you feel like heading for a table towards the back for oysters, steak tartare or a porterhouse pork chop, but the real star here is the cocktails. Its signature is the Ready, Fire, Aim — Mezcal mixed with lime juice, house-made honey-pineapple syrup and a few dashes of Bittermens Hellfire bitters.
112 Amoy St, Singapore 069932
The Tippling Club
Before you decide on a drink at the Tippling Club, you must first eat the gummy bears. Each one has been made to represent the core flavours in each of their cocktails, so you can literally try before you buy. It’s probably the most fun you can have in a cocktail bar, but pace yourself — the gummy bears are so difficult to make you only get one bag’s worth.
38 Tanjong Pagar Rd, Singapore 088461
Jade Palace
Jade Palace isn’t a bar, it’s a restaurant, and a very good one at that. But the reason it’s also making our drinks wrap-up is it has one of the most ridiculous wine lists we’ve ever seen. Grand Cru Champagnes and Burgundies at prices Australian restaurants could only dream of selling them for — a particularly welcome surprise in a city ordinarily so expensive. 2005 Cathiard, 2012 Dujac and 2006 Nicolas Potel… it’s almost the best drinking we’ve done in the city.
583 Orchard Road, #B1–13 Forum The Shopping Mall, Singapore 238884
The Long Bar at Raffles Hotel
An obvious, albeit clichéd, pit stop. Colonial yet classy, Raffles Hotel is where the Singapore Sling was invented, and if you can look beyond the exorbitant costs ($35 per Sling), you’ll agree a trip to the Long Bar is one you shouldn’t miss. The peanut shells scattered on the floor take some getting used to, but once you’ve thrown a few handfuls yourself you’ll find you feel differently.
1 Beach Rd, Singapore 189673
